This invention applies to the vending of products in general and in particular to the difficult issues that arise when attempting to dispense items of various sizes and shapes and/or fragile items that do not fare well when subjected to dropping or impact forces during a vend cycle. While the invention addresses all of these issues, the problems associated with dispensing bottled beverages of various sizes and configurations and packaged in various types of materials such as glass or plastic perhaps best characterize the situation. Accordingly, the invention will hereinafter be discussed in the context of its applicability to dispensing contained beverages, it being understood that the inventive principles can be expanded to include the dispensing of other products as well.
Machines for vending canned and/or bottled beverages have long been known. Early bottled vending machines enabled release of same-sized bottled beverages, one at a time, following deposit of the required purchase amount, from chest-like coolers. The purchaser was required for example to slide the neck of the beverage bottle along and through a retaining race to a dispensing location from which it could be lifted out of the refrigerated chest after release by the dispensing mechanism. With the advent of canned beverages, dispensing became somewhat simpler and easier to automate due to the standardization of container sizes and techniques that enabled the cylindrical cans to roll and drop through chutes during a vend cycle to the delivery area of the machine. Due in part to the rigidity of the cans and their secure seal mechanisms, and the fact that their movement can be fairly well controlled during a dispensing cycle, the canned beverage vending machine has become the standard of today's sealed beverage dispensing systems.
For the most part, the sale of specialty beverages such as fruit or fruit flavored juices, milk, teas and the like and/or beverages that were sealed in glass or plastic bottles, has been conducted by means of over-the-counter sale techniques and not through automated vending machines. For many of such specialty beverages, packaging in the standard disposable can configuration is not a viable option. For others, the marketing appeal and distinctiveness of a uniquely shaped or stylized container is of major concern. Non-can packaging has now even become popular for the well-known carbonated beverages, that are readily available in many different sized and shaped containers, both plastic and glass, and in various volumes.
It has also become desirable for vending machines to have glass doors through which the actual product being vended can be viewed by the purchaser. Such machines having helical vending coils (as for example illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,245) for dispensing non-beverage packaged goods have become very popular with both customers and merchants. Refrigerated merchandising coolers for holding bottled beverages and having glass fronts have also been available in, for example, convenience stores, but have not generally been available for automatic dispensing of beverages. Some beverage dispensing machines have been configured such that their front doors hold actual samples of the beverages contained within the machine, but do not display the actual beverages to be dispensed.
Whether or not the vending machine has a glass front, automated vending has been a problem for most of the non-standard sized and non-canned beverage containers. To date, an automated vending machine that can reliably and safely vend beverage containers of different materials, sizes and shapes from the same machine, without damaging or dropping the container or product within has not been available.
One beverage vending machine that has attempted to address the need for a glass front beverage vending machine for bottled-type containers is illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,505,332 and Des. 362,463. Such machine enables the purchaser to view and select the actual product to be vended, but operates on a principle that vertically drops the vended beverage container from the front end of the shelf on which it is stored, to a lower chute area that redirects the container to a delivery area from which the purchaser can remove the container. While addressing a number of industry needs, this vending technique is not usable or practical for vending many of the varied shaped and sized beverage containers available today, without the risk of damage to the container or contents. This is particularly true of larger glass bottles or thinner plastic containers that are susceptible to breakage or damage during a vertical drop vending process. In order to address such problems, larger and/or more damage susceptible containers, might be required to be placed on the lowermost shelves of the machine in order to minimize the vertical drop distance. Such requirement can impose significant marketing disadvantages to the merchandisers of such products who may wish to have their products displayed at a higher (e.g. eye level) position in the machine. Further, the impact imparted to the beverage container and its contents as a result of the vertical drop process can result in explosion or ruptured containers. At the very least, for carbonated beverages, the drop vend process requires the purchaser to wait for a period of time before opening the container in order to prevent explosive or overflow effervescence of the beverage upon opening. It is obvious that any breakage or product leakage or explosion within the vending machine can be very detrimental to the operability and reliability of the machine and can contribute to excessive maintenance problems.
Another disadvantage of machines such as that of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,332 patent, and virtually all vending machines that operate on the principle of dropping and delivering the vended product by gravity, is that the delivery bin or delivery port of the machine is necessarily located below the lowest shelf of the product storage area toward the lower portion of the machine. Such positioning requires the purchaser to bend down and often to reach in awkward manner, in order to retrieve the vended product from the delivery bin of the vending machine.
There have been designs of vending machines that use robotic principles to acquire a product to be vended from the machine. With the use of such robotic techniques, the product to be vended can be selected and removed from its stored position without dropping the product, and which can then be carried to a delivery area that is not required to be at the bottom of the machine. Examples of such machines as applied to the vending of like-sized video cassettes are illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,036,472 and 5,139,384. Such systems, however, have not been particularly applicable to the dispensing of fragile products or of beverage containers of varied shapes. In general they have employed robotic mechanisms that are not practical for rapidly dispensing beverage, containers, and do not generally address the other problems of the prior art described above as related to dispensing bottled beverages.
The present invention addresses the described deficiencies of prior art vending machines and the need for a dispensing machine and method for dispensing fragile containers such as beverages packaged in glass, plastic or can containers of varied sizes, shapes and fluid volumes.